By Jane Mlambo| Respected cleric and General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) Reverend Kenneth Mtata has discouraged people from making medical judgements based on religious declarations.

This follows remarks by United Family International church leader Apostle Emmanuel Makandiwa against the COVID-19 vaccines.

In one of his preachings, Makandiwa claimed that previous vaccines administered on Africans had distorted their DNA.

He also claimed that the DNA of Africans had been tampered in the search for the Covid-19 vaccine.

But Rev Mtata felt Makandiwa’s message was off the rail while discouraging reliance on religious declarations for medical judgments.

“No religious declarations or political manifestos can be the basis for making medical judgements. The bifurcation of discourses must be respected,” said Mtata.

Makandiwa’s remarks have divided opinion in the country with some of the opinion that government should take steps to censure those who make reckless statements about a pandemic that has already claimed hundreds of lives locally and millions globally.